About
Dahlia Dahlietta Violet Sunburst ('Baldavisun') (Dahlietta Surprise Series) is a tuberous dahlia cultivar in the family Asteraceae that flowers from July to October. It belongs to the genus Dahlia, a group of herbaceous plants native to Mexico and Central America and widely grown as garden hybrids. Like other tuberous dahlias, it dies back after frost and persists through its storage roots. Where winters are cold the tubers require lifting or protection to survive until the following season.
About the genus
Dahlias come from the high meadows of Mexico, and somewhere in that heritage is the explanation for how they behave here: tender to frost, hungry, generous beyond all reason. No other plant gives you quite so much for so little. One tuber, planted after the last frost, becomes a shrub's worth of flowers by August — and the more you cut, the more they come.The range is faintly ridiculous. Tight pompoms, spiky cactus types, singles the bees adore, dinner-plates the size of your face. Whatever your garden's mood, there is a dahlia that agrees with it, which is probably why every generation falls out of love with them and then, a decade later, falls straight back in.They're at their best when much of the garden is winding down — late summer into autumn, flowering hard until the first frost calls time. I think of them as the encore. And they always play it.
Written by Henry
In the garden
Dahlia Dahlietta Violet Sunburst ('Baldavisun') (Dahlietta Surprise Series) is a cultivated dahlia within the Asteraceae family and derives from a genus native to Mexico and Central America. Dahlias are commonly raised as garden hybrids and produce their season of interest in summer and into autumn; this cultivar reliably flowers from July to October. The genus stores reserves in tuberous roots rather than true woody stems. Growth is herbaceous and based on those tubers; many dahlias reshoot each year when tubers are kept frost-free. Dahlias are not frost hardy, so in UK areas with cold winters the tubers should be lifted and stored or otherwise protected from freezing. Stems on some dahlias may partly lignify between seasons and then resprout from the tuber when conditions warm. In a UK garden this cultivar suits summer and autumn border planting where seasonal colour is required and where tuber management over winter is feasible. It is commonly grown as a summer bedding or border plant and will return each year from the same tubers if they are overwintered without frost damage.
More in the Dahlia genus
- Dahlia 'Clearview Cameron' (C)
- Dahlia 'Croydon Jumbo' (D)Dahlia
- Dahlia 'Elizabeth Snowden' (Col)
- Dahlia 'Katie's Velvet' (Col)Dahlia
- Dahlia 'LB Michael Braithwaite' (D)
- Dahlia 'Amazing Grace' (Misc)
- Dahlia 'Aurora's Kiss' (Ba)
- Dahlia 'Black Diamond' (Ba)